Earl Brant Calder
Earl of Santa Fe - British American Noble Doctor Brant Calder has done a little bit of everything. Born to a Nachtjaeger family near Santa Fe, he learned the trade and led small hunting parties by the age of fourteen. In the first of many strange coincidences that brought him to his current life, he was member to a group of Nachtjaegers that rescued a wealthy hunting party lost during a violent storm spun off from the Navajo Nation Æster Wall. This chance encounter moved him away from his family to receive an education, paid for by these new grateful benefactors. In school he was voracious for knowledge. The inherent curiosity he developed as a Nachtjaeger and pathfinder translated from the physical world to the world of books, study and knowledge. Nearly illiterate when he arrived in school, by the time he turned eighteen, he tore through every book he could get his hands on. Philosophy, biology, botany, chemistry and even newly published papers on the new æster science were amongst the many subjects that captured his imagination. He spent his school holidays visiting his family, turning every excursion into the darkness into a scientific expedition. Over the holidays of his eighteenth year, another coincidental meeting occurred whilst young Calder spent time with his benefactors. He was introduced to a physician, with whom Calder returned to the east to learn if he had a medical aptitude. He soon found the new subject suited him very well and was set on his path to becoming a doctor. After a year interning, he was enrolled at the university in St. Louis where he earned his Medical Doctorate. During his years spent back east, his network of associates and friends grew considerably and he was quickly moving through circles of society he never imagined as a child. His fierce intellect was respected; his wide-ranging interests and unique upbringing allowed him to converse on diverse subjects with ease from a very different and new perspective. He became known for fiercely defending the independent, hard life of the Nightmen. After graduating medical school, Calder stayed in St. Louis to practice medicine, with several visits to San Francisco to learn new techniques and work in the hospitals there. He enjoyed his work as a doctor, but his true passion was exploration and discovery. This passion led him home time and again to investigations of the dark on hunting trips and outings with his family and childhood friends. On one such expedition, at the age of thirty, the third coincidence occurred that again changed the course of his life. His hunting party was caught in the open as an æster storm struck from out of nowhere. The party scattered and Brant was injured during the storm. After a night spent in the open, he found his way back to where the party had been when the storm struck. He arrived to find a band of Comancheros raiding the remains of their equipment and looting the dead. He joined a young Indian man as a captive of the Comancheros, to be sold into slavery. Over three days the slavers dragged him and the young Indian through the wilderness. Four days after being captured, they escaped, chained together. Brant finally succumbed to his wounds and exhaustion, lapsing into unconsciousness. He awoke in a Navajo village inside the æster wall. Chato, the young Indian, had saved his life and brought him through the æster wall to the village to recover. Thus began Calder's quest to comprehend what was happening inside the æster walls of the Indian nations. He and John Chato traveled to every Indian Nation in British America, writing extensively on what he saw. The two men saved each other's lives on countless occasions, now having traveled the world, documenting, exploring and adventuring into the most inhospitable regions of the globe Calder's writings have become the de facto authority on Indian Nations in British North America and his discoveries have extended the understanding of the world as a whole. For these accomplishments he was summoned to New London, Australia and ennobled by the hand of King Edward VIII. He was made Lord Calder, Earl of Santa Fe. His love of his homeland and deep emotional ties to the land were made manifest through his land grant. When he isn’t traveling and continuing his exploits around the world with John Chato, he makes his home in Santa Fe. His second home is at the Royal University in St. Louis where he is a patron, instructor and fellow of the University. He also founded the New England Chapter of the Royal Geographical Society.